Telling Tales About a ‘Tough Texas’

Texas is often heralded as the most punitive state in America, yet how much do we really know about the Lone Star State and its relationship with punishment? Lots of people are telling stories about Texan punishment, but what do those stories teach us? And how is the Texan punishment identity constructed both within academic scholarship and within mediated messages? This chapter seeks to answer such questions. We will begin by exploring the sociology of punishment scholarship for Texas-specific discussion and argument, and then move on to consider some statistics relating to Lone Star punishment. Once we have established this scholarly and statistical image of Lone Star justice we will examine some recent cases which have been used to highlight Texan punitiveness in the national (and international) news media, and discuss the extent to which Texan political discourse tells similar tales of a tough Texas.